1. Technical Field
Present invention embodiments relate to optimizing resource allocation/utilization, and more specifically, to mimicking a presence notification generated by an application running on a virtual component to provide improved utilization of computing resources.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
In order to optimize utilization of computing resources on a server, maximizing the number of virtual machines (VMs) running under a hypervisor is desirable. In some instances, an application running on a VM may consume computing resources primarily to provide a presence notification to another application running on another VM or machine. Such presence notifications, also referred to as heartbeat notifications, are a type of status signal occurring at a designated interval to indicate that the application is still available. Absence of a presence notification may indicate that the VM or application has malfunctioned or crashed.
In virtualized systems, a hypervisor instantiates and manages one or more VMs. Although hypervisors have the capability to downsize resources allocated to a VM, simply downsizing resources is generally not sufficient to optimize utilization of available computing resources. For example, when a presence notification is generated and transmitted by an application running on a VM, computational activity on the VM may transiently spike. In response, the amount of computing resources provisioned for that VM may be increased in response to this transient spike, leading to an underutilization of computing resources (as the VM is primarily idle except for the generation of presence notifications). Although an administrator may set an upper limit on the amount of computing resources provisioned to a VM, this limit may still be ultimately governed by the amount of resources needed to generate and transmit presence notifications. Accordingly, generation and transmission of presence notifications (in the absence of other computational activity) may lead to consumption of computing resources that could otherwise be utilized.